


The Avatar and the Spymistress

by lettersfromnowhere



Series: The Waiting Game [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Marriage Proposal, Post-"The Waiting Game", The Waiting Game-verse, because I have all of the self-control of a ferret set loose in a meat locker, i may have lied, remember when I said this series was over?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:27:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27131107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettersfromnowhere/pseuds/lettersfromnowhere
Summary: In which Hina is romanced, Aang is utterly whipped, and many milestones are achieved, or: the courtship of Hina Oyama and Avatar Aang.
Relationships: Aang (Avatar)/Original Female Character(s), Aang/Hina Oyama (The Waiting Game), Background Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: The Waiting Game [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1867837
Comments: 10
Kudos: 21





	The Avatar and the Spymistress

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Waiting Game](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25272334) by [lettersfromnowhere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettersfromnowhere/pseuds/lettersfromnowhere). 



> Y'all. I really do have zero self control. It's so bad, and this is so random and disjointed because it's actually assembled from two unrelated oneshots that I wrote for a friend (we write each other ficlets about the TWG couples that never see the light of day almost every night. So...befriend me if you want to exchange "kind-of safe for work" Hyunya/Yunuji fic every night, kids!). But hey...Haang getting-together/proposal oneshot? Yeah?

**_~ 103 AG ~_ **

They part ways again a week after she kisses him for the first time, and though neither has the gumption that they did that night any longer, drunk on the buoyant festivity of the occasion, Aang nonetheless pulls her aside and gives her the softest, shyest kiss imaginable before they part ways. His hand rests against her cheek so lightly that she can barely feel its brush, and hers comes up to cover it. There’s a rosy flush to Hina’s cheeks that he’s never seen before, and a shy smile that he cannot imagine her showing to anyone else; it’s all Aang can do not to kiss her again, the beautiful Spymistress who has, somehow, improbably, made him the happiest Avatar in the history of Avatars.

“I’ll be seeing you,” she says, and his lips quirk up at the odd phrasing. Hina doesn’t use words accidentally, and he feels that there’s something in these ones worth noting.

“Seeing me as in…are we...?”

“Well, I should hope so.” Hina laughs lightly. “Otherwise all that kissing is a little bit hard to explain.”

Aang drops his hand from her face, then, and takes both of her hands in his. “So...am I your boyfriend now?”

She smiles unabashedly. “You’re adorable,” she says, averting her eyes and freeing one hand from his to brush a lock of hair out of her face. She tilts her head away from his, and her cheeks redden. Then, after a moment, she leans in to press her lips to his cheek.

“Is that a yes?”

“That’s a yes, little Avatar.”

He’s been dancing around the idea of kissing her again since that first time; he’d thought that goodbye kiss would be all he could manage. But he can’t resist leaning in and claiming her lips once more.

“As your girlfriend,” she breathes, “I think it’s within my rights to tell you to write to me.”

“Every day,” Aang promises.

Hina shakes her head. “No, don’t. Don’t let me distract you.” She repeats the motion of brushing hair out of her face. “But...sometimes?”

“Okay.”

He tucks her under his chin (where she belongs, he thinks) one last time, and he is off.

_**~ 104 AG ~** _

Hina’s far from a giggly twentysomething fawning over her boyfriend, of that she’s certain. She’s insistently kept the pining to a minimum in their year apart (even if she sometimes presses the letters he sends to her nose when she receives them just to catch his homey scent on them), and she’s been as excellent a Spymistress as she’s always been.

But when Aang arrives in the Fire Nation, all of her pretensions of composure fly swiftly out the nearest window.

“Aang!” she cries, practically stumbling down the long stairway at the palace’s front entrance, and he looks up immediately.

“Hina!” he calls back, waving ( _he’s such a dork),_ and by the time she reaches him at the bottom of the staircase, his arms are open and waiting. She gratefully tucks herself into them, squealing with surprise (she’ll deny making that sound fervently if she’s ever asked) as he sweeps her feet off the ground and twirls her. She buries herself in his embrace when he sets her down, murmuring greetings and “I missed you”s all at once. He, in turn, nuzzles his chin against the top of her head, and suddenly she wishes she could sink into him, could keep falling and never stop.

“Did you get taller?” she asks when he pulls back.

“Did you get prettier?” he shoots back, and though she has to groan internally at his sappiness, Hina rises on her toes and meets his eyes with an impish smile.

“No, you just missed me,” she says, and she kisses him.

“Aang! It’s so good to-“

The Fire Lady freezes in her tracks when she spots them, and almost immediately, her face breaks out into a megawatt smile.

“Uh...Katara!” Aang calls, skittering away from Hina with an apologetic look. “Good to see you!”

Katara rolls her eyes and shifts baby Izumi against her shoulder. “I see you‘ve reacquainted yourself with our cabinet,” she teases. Hina flushes bright red but she’s smart enough to know not to deny it. “Have something to tell me?”

“Um, please don’t be mad,” Aang stammers, “but, um, I...”

“Dating.” Hina crosses her arms. “Him. Me. Dating.”

Katara is too dumbstruck to speak, so Hina continues. “You know, in a relationship. Romantically involved. Seeing each other. A thing. An item-“

“I know what that means, Spymistress Oyama.” Katara smirks. “I’m just a bit surprised.”

“You knew I liked her!” Aang protests.

“Yeah, but I never thought you’d tell her.”

Hina just smirks.

And then she realizes that if Katara knows, Zuko is going to be hearing about this in no more than ten minutes, and her face blanches.

“I hope this isn’t a breach of protocol,” she says nervously.

“Please, Hina.” Katara smiles generously. “You’re adorable together.”

(Two years later, as she dabs at her eyes during their wedding, she can’t fight the smirk off her face.)

_**~ 106 AG ~** _

"You look stressed, Hina." Aang sets his hand against the small of her back. "Is something the matter?"

"It's fine," she says tightly. "Really."

"I know you aren't," Aang says, steering her away from the dance floor and the chaos of the diplomatic summit's opening reception. They step out into a vast hypostyle hall, its graceful columns arching to the ceiling. "Tell me what's wrong. Please?"

"It really is nothing," Hina demurs, but, seeing that he doesn't buy it, she sighs in resignation. "It's just...haven't you seen all of the looks that we've been getting tonight?"

"Looks?" Aang narrows his eyes. "What looks?"

"You haven't noticed?" Hina's face falls.

"Did somebody say something to you?" Aang asks, though he knows he's been with her all night and there's no way something would've happened without his knowledge. "I'm sure we can sort it out-" 

"It's what they aren't saying that's telling," Hina sighs. Aang leans against one of the pillars and Hina rests against him, pressing her cheek to the soft, homey cotton of his robes. "It's just...disdain. They look at us as if we've committed some terrible crime every time they see us together."

"Who's 'they'?"

"Almost everyone." Hina swallows hard. "I've gotten so many glares, and it's so obvious what they're all saying."

"Hina..."

"They think I'm not good enough for you." Hina can't look at him. "Not good enough for the Avatar. Or an Airbender, when I'm Fire Nation-"

"Stop that," Aang murmurs, pressing his lips to the intricate braid at the crown of her head. Her hair is too short to wear in most of the updos that other court ladies are wearing tonight, so she's gotten creative with braids and she's quite the expert at them now; she bats him away when his lips threaten to muss her latest creation. "You know they're not right."

"But-"

"Hina, look at me." Aang shrugs himself off of the column and straightens, pulling Hina up with him. He lifts her chin, and she tries to close her eyes. "Open your eyes. Just...look at me, okay?"

"Aang, I...I can't."

"Hina, come on," he coaxes. "It's me." He strokes his thumb along the line of her jaw. "Me, Aang, who loves you."

"What if that's not enough?" she asks, her jaw shuddering under his gentle touch as the part of her that wants to sink into him and keep on falling wars with every ounce of pragmatism in her body, telling her to pull away. "What if...what if they never accept us?"

"Well, we have the backing of the Fire Lord, after all," Aang says, gently, lightly. "And the whole Southern Water Tribe, and the most powerful family in the Earth Kingdom. All of them can attest to your character, little Spymistress." He kisses her nose. "We'll have plenty of people in our corner. And..."

Hina's almost smiling, and she allows herself the indulgence of leaning into his touch. "And?"

"You have me," Aang says softly. "I can promise you that."

She doesn't say anything, and Aang realizes with a weight as heavy as that of the metal cuff he's been carrying, concealed, in his robes that he won't get a better time than this.

"Can you?"

"I can." Aang lets go of one of Hina's hands to fish around in his robes. "If you'll have me, I can."

As she sees what he's holding, Hina gasps.

He's studied this. It's what they do in the Earth Kingdom: precious metal, hammered thin and shaped into a cuff ornamented with silver filigree. If she accepts, she'll wear it on her right wrist for the rest of her life. Her mother had such a cuff; Hina confessed, once, that of all of her mother's things, that is the one that she most wishes she could have saved. But she couldn't: the lovingly-gilt metal of Yuna Oyama's wedding cuff was undoubtedly melted down when she was killed, and Hina won't get to wear it.

But she will, if Aang has anything to say about it, have one of her own.

"I know you probably weren't expecting this," he chuckles nervously, "but...I've been carrying this around for months. And...I don't know, hearing you talk about your doubts just made me want to tell you that there's no one else I want to spend my life with."

"Aang," Hina breathes, her face rosy with some combination of joy and wonder and terror. "They're not going to like this."

"Hina, all that matters to me is whether _we_ like it."

"I'd be a terrible wife," Hina tries again.

"I wouldn't have any other one," Aang counters.

"I'm not the one anyone would want you to be with."

"But you're the one _I_ want to be with," Aang tells her, ever-patient. He knows that he must address her worries if he wants her to make this choice, and he is all too willing.

"They'll say we're wrong."

"But we'll know we're right."

"I'll probably be terrible in bed," she counters, an obvious last-ditch effort, flushing profusely.

"But perfect for me," he says, a little flirtatious now, as he sets his hand against her waist and pulls her in closer.

"I have work of my own. I won't be able to herd a brood of airbenders."

"Of course not. We'll both herd them." Aang looks down at her questioningly. "And who said anything about a brood?"

"Aang." Hina looks up at him, giggling.

"Yes, love?"

"You still haven't even asked me."

"Hm?"

"The question," she says, delight seeping in through the cracks in her apprehension. "Ask me the question!"

"Oh, I suppose I did forget that." He smiles, and clears his throat, then presses his forehead to hers. "Hina Oyama," he says, half-breathless already, "will you do me the honor of being my wife?"

" _Yes_ ," she chokes out, shoving him against the pillar to kiss him soundly. She's too short to reach his lips on her own, so she has to rise on her toes, but she gives it all she's got anyway, and they both break away smiling.

He slips the cuff over her wrist without a word, and when she looks back up at him, she's nothing short of giddy.

"This is crazy," she murmurs.

"Not so much," Aang says, brushing her hair out of her eyes and letting his palm settle against her cheek after he's done.

"I'm gonna marry the Avatar," she says, bewildered, grinning.

"You're...going to marry...the Avatar," Aang says haltingly. "Spirits above, you're going to marry the Avatar! I'm going to marry-"

"You're going to _what?!?_

He's a little too loud not to draw the attention of the guests, and though Hina cringes as people begin to flood the hall, drawn by the chattering guest who'd alerted the crowds to their goings-on, she leans in and kisses him anyway.

"You're going to marry the Spymistress," she murmurs.

And doubt flies away, high as her giddy heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my AP Art History teacher for telling me what a hypostyle hall was because they are Very Cool and I got to include one in this.


End file.
